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Images on totebags take Hampden artist’s work everywhere

Artist Norm Stern of Hampden holds a totebag bearing an image of his original painting of a hibiscus. Stern’s totebags will be available for purchase at the Congregation Beth Israel Sisterhood annual Holiday Marketplace and Craft Fair 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 17, at 144 York St. norm stern, totebag, hibiscus, congregation beth israel, craft fair

Norm Stern, 89, of Hampden received from his wife, Marie, a gift on his 75th birthday that has never left him since. Her gift was 10 painting lessons from an artist in Baltimore, where they lived at the time.

“I had never painted before, I never drew anything. I still don’t draw,” he said. Stern, a man of nimble intellect and lively energy, took to painting quickly. His instructor, he said, allowed his students to develop for themselves how painting worked for them.

At that time in his life, Stern had had a 15-year career as a teacher of English and history, and more than 30 years for Maryland Paper Box, opening a distributor network for the company throughout the United States.

He had come into the paper box industry at an opportune time. “Gift boxes had rigid sides,” he said. “Making them was a local business because they were too difficult to ship.” Then someone figured out how to make flat boxes that could be opened into the familiar four-sided shape. “That changed everything,” Stern said. Now, boxes could be shipped to stores nationally and internationally, a new niche that provided a job opportunity for Stern.

Several years ago, painting and Stern’s past experience in the packaging industry merged. He arranged to have prints of three of his paintings — a hibiscus, a sailboat and a still life with lobsters — transferred to canvas and paper totebags. Previously he had experimented with having a local business affix the images to towels, which proved to be popular with friends he gave them to, he said. The totebags received a similar favorable reaction from people, including myself, who purchased several at the Hampden Garden Club craft fair in October.

“Painting,” Stern said, “is about identity and an expression of things I like. I paint everything that I see that I like.” He describes his painting style as “rugged realism.”

Stern, a World War II veteran who served under Gen. Patton, paints every day, though now it is often in short segments of time because he devotes much of his considerable energy to seeing to Marie’s care. Marie, a retired food chemist, recently had a downtown in health, making it necessary for her to use a wheelchair.

Each year on Marie’s birthday, Stern paints a special picture just for her, which he signs, “Normy.” No one but Marie ever gets a painting signed that way.

“I’ve done hundreds of paintings and given many to friends around the United States and world,” he said. Including Israel, India and Europe.

Stern has had one-man shows of his paintings in various venues in the Bangor area. Plans are in the works to exhibit his work in December at the Edythe Dyer Library in Hampden. His work can be viewed at thesterngallery.com.